Ballmer Defends Microsoft's Business Decisions

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has defended his company's financial results and business decisions after brokerage firm Goldman Sachs warned investors about the company's precarious position in the smartphone and tablet market.

Giving a key note speech at the London School of Economics, Ballmer said that Microsoft will benefit from the industry wide transition to the cloud.

Ballmer said that Microsoft offers both private and public cloud services, which gives it an edge over rivals such as Amazon, VMware and Oracle, as they only offered public cloud hosting services.

However, Ballmer added that when it comes to Microsoft's financial performance, the company had room for improvement, but said that he was "not gonna be apologetic about our results nor our investment".

Taking a jab at internet search giant Google, Ballmer also said that the company takes user privacy very seriously.

“We have to weigh out who owns and controls data. That's a fundamental responsibility for us all,” he said.